Chapter 16
It seemed like it had caught the scent of humans from a reservoir not far from here.
‘Time to gain more experience points.’
There are inevitably several limitations to using divine powers in a human body.
Therefore, in addition to the matching rate, skill level was also necessary.
As the skill level increases, the types and destructive power of the abilities that can be used increase.
As mana channels develop in the body, physical abilities become much stronger than those of ordinary humans.
The same goes for Baek Yi-heon.
In just a few days, his movements had become lighter and faster.
Even his body, which seemed like it couldn’t get any better, had improved.
[(Messenger) Avatar Baek Yi-heon’s power skill ‘Yaksha’s Rage’ evolves to Lv.2.]
Being in an uncontracted state, the messenger displayed necessary information on the status window at my request.
The contract, levels, etc., were said to be expressed in the most intuitive and familiar style for me to understand easily.
‘It’s good that the male lead is leveling up, but it’s still annoying to encounter monsters one by one.’
[(Messenger) Indra whispers secretly that he could sweep away such trifles if you just make a guardian contract with him.]
Indra would send spam like this through the messenger whenever I was about to forget about him.
‘Ah, how noisy.’
Isn’t there a way to block spam mail coming from the celestial realm?
[(Messenger) S-spam mail? Indra grabs his nape at the excessively irreverent remark.]
At that moment, Sehun urgently pressed me.
“Noona, Noona! You need to give me a problem!”
“Huh? Oh, right. We were in the middle of the ‘Guess What’ game.”
I had forgotten that I was playing and training with Sehun while reading the messenger.
I rolled a small stone behind my back, then held out two fists in front of the child.
“Okay. Guess. ‘The stone is in my left fist.'”
“Hmm…”
[(Messenger) Avatar ‘Lee Sehun’ casts ‘Lie Detection’ Lv1!]
“No! That’s a lie! The stone is in your right hand!”
Sehun shouted with a serious expression.
I opened my clenched hands.
The stone was in my left hand.
“Oh.”
When the skill level of a power skill was low, failures like this often occurred.
The child, who had shouted triumphantly, deflated like a balloon.
“It’s okay. You’ll get better gradually. Ah, he’s finished over there too.”
As Baek Yi-heon delivered the final blow by stabbing the ‘Giant Mole’s Claw’ into its gills, the giant catfish let out a horrible cry and disappeared.
[(Messenger) Baek Yi-heon has defeated the D-rank monster ‘Spider Catfish’! Mana capacity and overall stats increase.]
I quickly jumped out of the driver’s seat and approached to look around.
No items dropped this time either.
Instead, a blue magic stone was lying there.
I quickly picked it up and put it in a small hip sack stolen from a mart.
As a result of diligently collecting like a squirrel gathering acorns, the small bag was already full of magic stones of various colors.
This was all thanks to Baek Yi-heon who had been fighting monsters diligently, serving as training as well.
And I just picked up the leftovers on the side.
“Why are you picking those up so eagerly?”
Baek Yi-heon asked, tucking the Giant Mole’s Claw into his waist like a knife.
“Just because. They’re pretty, like jewels.”
‘There will be uses for them later.’
I hid my true intentions and smiled at him.
Then Baek Yi-heon turned his head away again with a swift motion.
‘Why does he keep doing that, really.’
Have I been living without smiling too much that maybe I’m smiling a bit scarily?
I grumbled inwardly and made a mental note to grab a mirror next time we raided a mart.
At that moment, I noticed a red line on Baek Yi-heon’s arm as he turned his head.
It looked like a burn mark, probably from the toxic slime of that catfish monster earlier.
“Oh? You’re slightly hurt.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Yeah, it looks like it.”
‘It’s not a big wound, and there’s no way a protagonist protected by the Yaksha would be affected by the toxin of a mere D-rank monster.’
Leaving him with a slightly bewildered expression at my words, I returned to the camping car.
Thinking about which chapter it was where the protagonist gains a healer as a companion.
💎
“We’re almost there.”
I muttered softly as I spotted a sign while driving on the mountain road.
“So are we going straight to the prison, Noona?”
“No. Since the sun is setting…”
I answered, looking at the sky tinged yellow.
The sun sets quickly in the mountains.
Driving on mountain roads when it’s dark is not only undesirable in many ways, but it’s also better to enter unfamiliar places when the sun is up.
“Let’s camp in the mountains for tonight and go tomorrow.”
After looking around, I parked the camping car at a suitable spot about halfway up the mountain.
“Okay.”
Sehun responded cheerfully, closing his eyes and concentrating as if by habit.
Along with him, a round yellow barrier was raised in about a 5-meter radius around the camping car.
[(Messenger) ‘Boundary Barrier’ Lv.1 has been cast. The caster can notice if an intruder approaches within 3 meters.]
Though Sehun’s training was still insufficient and the barrier couldn’t block intruders, it would alert us immediately if anyone entered, effectively serving as a guard.
We prepared a simple dinner inside the camping car.
Instant 3-minute curry, sun-dried rice, and kimchi stolen from the mart.
‘Somehow, I’m eating even better than before the apocalypse.’
Back then, I often went hungry or just had cereal alone in my room.
A wave of bittersweet emotion washed over me, but it passed quickly as I took a bite of rice soaked in curry.
‘The apocalypse… It’s the best!’
[(Messenger) Indra clucks his tongue sadly at your distorted sense of morality and misanthropy.]
“The kimchi is delicious.”
“Right? Bi*go food is pretty good.”
“……”
Baek Yi-heon had been unusually quiet since hearing we were close to the prison.
Once we arrive at the survivor camp tomorrow, conversations like this between the three of us will end.
It was then, as the three of us were having a cozy dinner together.
Sehun, who was enjoying his curry, suddenly stood up.
His face had turned pale.
“Someone’s coming…!”
💎
Baek Yi-heon immediately jumped up and grabbed the weapon he had kept nearby.
I sharply questioned,
“‘Someone’? Is it a person?”
“It’s still too far away to tell that much.”
Sehun answered with furrowed brows, eyes closed to concentrate.
Baek Yi-heon first turned off all the lights inside the camping car and slightly opened the window covers that had been lowered.
In the mountains without a single light.
To my eyes, there was only pitch-black darkness, I couldn’t see anything.
But Baek Yi-heon, squinting as he peered out the window, said quietly.
“People. Two of them.”
‘People wandering in the mountains in the middle of the night like this?’
In cases like this, people are scarier than monsters.
I tensed up and tightly gripped the kitchen knife I had brought.
“They’re coming.”
Knock knock—
“Is anyone inside?”
“Is anyone there? Please open the door!”
Then, Sehun, who had been concentrating with his eyes closed, suddenly opened them.
“I don’t sense any bad intentions!”
Sehun’s ‘Evil Detection’ was at Lv2, higher than his ‘Lie Detection’.
There wasn’t much chance of it being wrong when dealing with ordinary people who weren’t Awakened.
“Hmm…”
Could they be lost? Hiding in the mountains to avoid monsters?
“W-what should we do?”
Sehun naturally looked up at me and asked.
The child had been completely trusting me since I rescued him from the shelter.
I glanced alternately at the camping car’s driver’s seat and Baek Yi-heon, who was keeping his mouth shut, then quickly came to a conclusion.
“…Who are you? Identify yourselves first!”
Because there’s no way that the morally upright protagonist would run away from people who might be in distress.
“Are you lost?”
Sure enough, Baek Yi-heon followed up with his deep voice.
“Ah, so there are people inside after all.”
“No, we’re not lost!”
A cheerful voice came from outside the door.
“On the contrary, we’re here to rescue you!”
…rescue?
Baek Yi-heon, Sehun, and all looked at each other at the same time.
💎
Thank you for reading! ♡
